Magazine: Homelife
Corum Residence
Location: Pella, Iowa, USA
Designer: Substance Architecture
This modest, single family residence on a four acre site was designed for a family looking to "downsize" their domestic lives. Playing on dimensions to create a contemporary home, the resulting home expresses itself and gestures beyond - to the rural Iowa landscape. The elemental design consists of a galvanized metal clad "tube" gently resting on a cast-in-place concrete "plinth" and pointed toward the view. The home's simple form and and materials reference agricultural buildings prevalent in the central United States.
The more public "living" spaces have direct access to the balcony, providing round-the-clock access to breathtaking views. Nestled at the other end, the private "bed and bath" functions are sequestered deep within the metal-clad wedge and concrete plinth. Internally, the home utilizes a system of maple and acrylic shelving, an open-riser stair, and a fireplace mass to vertically organize the section and link its three levels.
When Mike and Jaxine Corum decided to build a house, they were not interested in quantity of space, unlike so many suburban home owners today, but in quality. Breaking with the norm did not come easily. "Sometimes I would look at an aspect of the [proposed] design and think that we could have had a few more rooms instead," recalls Mike Corum. While sacrificing floor space, they got an elegantly organized, striking home, the likes of which Pella (Iowa) has never seen.
Set on a hillside in a new but mostly undeveloped subdivision four miles west of town, directly across the street from the only other house in the area, a neat Colonial, the Corum Residence is a single, monumental volume focused on a bucolic view of a small pond and a copse of windblown shrubbery. This single-volume strategy offered several advantages, says principal-in-charge Paul Mankins of Herbert Lewis Kruse Blunck, Des Moines: "Part of the reason was cost, but we also wanted to design a building that reflected the utilitarian structures you see around Iowa." Those structures—barns, warehouses, and cone-capped grain elevators—have stark geometries that stand out on the gently rolling prairie, but their relationship to the Corum Residence might not be apparent to the casual observer.
To fit the desired program comfortably into the funnel-shaped volume, Mankins approached the design with a rationalist's eye. The width of the building derives from the minimum size needed for a two-car garage that occupies the north end of the building. Inside, discrete functions carefully unfold along a centerline, uniting small spaces into a greater whole.
The interior seems bigger than it is. Inset floor-to-ceiling side windows line the kitchen and dining area, keeping the space from feeling narrow. The monumentality of the volume also contributes to a sense of spaciousness: The looming presence of the large funnel-end makes the intimate inner rooms seem as though they are surrounded by much larger spaces, when in fact the entire house is only 2,200 square feet.
The funnel works differently at its southern end, where it culminates in a full-height space 26-feet square; a monumental window wall splits the area into a living room and an exterior balcony. The balcony, which extends to the very end of the giant tube, is a dramatic and imposing presence. This is not necessarily a negative: Standing at the open funnel-end is an exhilarating experience. However, the full-height living room on the other side of the glass is less successful; the tall, narrow, open-ended volume gives the living room the feeling of a hallway or atrium, a space to move through rather than settle in.
The Corum house is a bold attempt to introduce a strong exterior geometry into a gentle landscape and to take full advantage of a small interior space. Despite a few tenuous aspects, the house works, providing the owners with a small home that feels dramatic and spacious. Pella is a conservative place, especially when it comes to maintaining the town's public image, but since the Corums have moved in, they have had a steady trickle of visitors. "Everyone wants to see it," says Jaxine. "And once they come inside, they understand."
Designer: Substance Architecture
This modest, single family residence on a four acre site was designed for a family looking to "downsize" their domestic lives. Playing on dimensions to create a contemporary home, the resulting home expresses itself and gestures beyond - to the rural Iowa landscape. The elemental design consists of a galvanized metal clad "tube" gently resting on a cast-in-place concrete "plinth" and pointed toward the view. The home's simple form and and materials reference agricultural buildings prevalent in the central United States.
The more public "living" spaces have direct access to the balcony, providing round-the-clock access to breathtaking views. Nestled at the other end, the private "bed and bath" functions are sequestered deep within the metal-clad wedge and concrete plinth. Internally, the home utilizes a system of maple and acrylic shelving, an open-riser stair, and a fireplace mass to vertically organize the section and link its three levels.
When Mike and Jaxine Corum decided to build a house, they were not interested in quantity of space, unlike so many suburban home owners today, but in quality. Breaking with the norm did not come easily. "Sometimes I would look at an aspect of the [proposed] design and think that we could have had a few more rooms instead," recalls Mike Corum. While sacrificing floor space, they got an elegantly organized, striking home, the likes of which Pella (Iowa) has never seen.
Set on a hillside in a new but mostly undeveloped subdivision four miles west of town, directly across the street from the only other house in the area, a neat Colonial, the Corum Residence is a single, monumental volume focused on a bucolic view of a small pond and a copse of windblown shrubbery. This single-volume strategy offered several advantages, says principal-in-charge Paul Mankins of Herbert Lewis Kruse Blunck, Des Moines: "Part of the reason was cost, but we also wanted to design a building that reflected the utilitarian structures you see around Iowa." Those structures—barns, warehouses, and cone-capped grain elevators—have stark geometries that stand out on the gently rolling prairie, but their relationship to the Corum Residence might not be apparent to the casual observer.
To fit the desired program comfortably into the funnel-shaped volume, Mankins approached the design with a rationalist's eye. The width of the building derives from the minimum size needed for a two-car garage that occupies the north end of the building. Inside, discrete functions carefully unfold along a centerline, uniting small spaces into a greater whole.
The interior seems bigger than it is. Inset floor-to-ceiling side windows line the kitchen and dining area, keeping the space from feeling narrow. The monumentality of the volume also contributes to a sense of spaciousness: The looming presence of the large funnel-end makes the intimate inner rooms seem as though they are surrounded by much larger spaces, when in fact the entire house is only 2,200 square feet.
The funnel works differently at its southern end, where it culminates in a full-height space 26-feet square; a monumental window wall splits the area into a living room and an exterior balcony. The balcony, which extends to the very end of the giant tube, is a dramatic and imposing presence. This is not necessarily a negative: Standing at the open funnel-end is an exhilarating experience. However, the full-height living room on the other side of the glass is less successful; the tall, narrow, open-ended volume gives the living room the feeling of a hallway or atrium, a space to move through rather than settle in.
The Corum house is a bold attempt to introduce a strong exterior geometry into a gentle landscape and to take full advantage of a small interior space. Despite a few tenuous aspects, the house works, providing the owners with a small home that feels dramatic and spacious. Pella is a conservative place, especially when it comes to maintaining the town's public image, but since the Corums have moved in, they have had a steady trickle of visitors. "Everyone wants to see it," says Jaxine. "And once they come inside, they understand."
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